Could you find it in your heart to wish someone who harmed your child well?

In court today, the mother of Tyrek Marquez, who was shot in the head after the 2008 West Indian Day Parade, showed enormous grace for the teenagers responsible for hurting her child.

September Chatfield said she hoped one of the young men sentenced for the shooting would use his time in prison "to reflect on the course he'd chose in life and the impact his actions have had on others."

Chatfield said she felt sorry for 19-year-old Michael Ledbetter, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison and eight years of special parole.

"These guys took the wrong turn," she said.

THE HARTFORD COURANT

THE HARTFORD COURANT4 / 4 - Wednesday, August 13, 2008

A BOY SURVIVESAND A HARTFORD MOTHER HOPES PEOPLE STEP UP, SPEAK OUT

Edition: 5 northwest connecticut/sports finalSection: MAINPage: A1Type: columnSource: HELEN UBINASIllustration: PHOTO: COLOR, RICK HARTFORD / THE HARTFORD COURANTCaption: TYREK MARQUEZ, 7, who was shot in Hartford's North End Saturday, lies in a bed at the Connecticut Children's Medical Center Tuesday, a toy football at his side and blood from his head wound on his pillow. Tyrek's mother has stayed with him almost constantly; he faces a long recovery and physical therapy. He just fell. And at first, the people standing around the little boy didn't think the unrelenting popping noises had anything to do with him collapsing onto the pavement like a rag doll. Firecrackers, they figured; they were at the annual West Indian Parade, after all. But then they saw blood gushing from 7-year-old Tyrek Marquez's head, and a woman who had been standing nearby said everyone suddenly started screaming and running, crashing into one another as they desperately sought cover from gunfire that never seemed to stop. After the initial spray of shots, she said, it was as if anyone with a gun started using it, including a man she saw firing from behind his back as he ran away. As she fled, the woman saw a man in a wheelchair frantically trying to roll himself to safety, but there didn't seem to be anywhere to hide. She took refuge under a truck, sharing the cramped space with another bystander who, so afraid, threw up all over the woman's shoulder. But it was the image of the little boy crumbling to the ground, she said, that she hasn't been able to shake. And that's why on Tuesday afternoon she found her way to the Connecticut Children's Medical Center on Washington Street, seeking out his mother, September Chatfield. "I'm sorry," says the Hartford woman, grasping a card she has come to deliver. "I feel so bad for leaving him there." After a short pause, Tyrek's mother, sitting in the waiting room right outside the hospital's intensive care unit, tells the woman it's OK. Her son is strong. He's alive, and as long as she and others aren't afraid now, when it really matters, when people need to come forward, it's OK. You hear that - all of you who pray at the altar of the "No Snitch" culture that has helped destroy this city? This mother is asking you to do the right thing, to step up, to speak up. There still haven't been any arrests in the parade shootings. It's a humble enough request, isn't it, from a mother and an innocent young boy who deserve justice? Chatfield had been waiting outside a store for Tyrek when he was shot Saturday. Tyrek had grown tired of being at the parade, so she let him go to a friend's aunt's house nearby. But when she went to get him, they told her that he'd just gone to the store. "I hope you're not at the parade," a friend called just moments earlier to say. There was a shooting. Not long after, Chatfield says, the two boys Tyrek had been with came screaming and crying down the street. "Tyrek got shot," they told her. They thought he might be dead. "Shot." "Dead." The words rang in Chatfield's head as she and her boyfriend rushed to the hospital, Chatfield crying and praying and banging on the dashboard all the way. She called St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, where he had initially been taken, but they couldn't tell her for sure if Tyrek was there. They were treating multiple victims of the parade shooting, including 17-month-old Zinia Jackson, who was shot in the leg. This can't be true, Chatfield thought. This can't be happening. Chatfield, who was born and raised in Hartford, knows better than most how the streets could suddenly, cruelly, claim the city's most innocent. Her home, on Enfield Street, sits right between the empty lot where 14-year-old Aquan Salmon was shot dead by a police officer in 1999 and the plot of ground where two years later a stray bullet tore into then-7-year-old Takira Gaston's face. Any mother trying to raise children in Hartford fears the frightening reality of tragedy touching her family, but Chatfield says she always hoped and prayed her own would be spared. She knows how dangerous it can be to speak out, even if it's the right thing to do. But this is different, she says. This is an innocent boy, a boy too young to have allegiances to anything other than maybe the New England Patriots and the New York Knicks. At the hospital, police asked Chatfield what Tyrek had been wearing. She'd just bought him the clothes he wore that day to the parade, but she suddenly went blank on the white T-shirt, the orange plaid shorts and the Nike Uptown sneakers he'd wanted so badly. "Oh my God," she remembers thinking. "They're going to tell me my son is dead." He wasn't, but she says doctors told her they had to operate to clear his head of broken bone fragments and to see if the bullet that entered the back of his head and exited near the side had done any damage. For four hours, Chatfield waited, at first in the family room, where she called her mother, a woman whose spirituality she suddenly yearned for. "Ma, get down on your knees right now." Chatfield didn't answer right away when her mother asked what was wrong. "Ma, get down on your knees right now and pray for my son." Later, Chatfield paced the parking lot, wondering if just around the corner some doctor would appear to tell her that Tyrek was gone. Doctors suggested she go home, get some rest, but other than leaving for a quick shower and change of clothes, she's been by Tyrek's side. It's been hard, she says, with a newborn and three other children at home. "But I'm not leaving my son." Chatfield didn't know it, but around the same time she and her family were thanking God that Tyrek was breathing on his own Monday, city officials were talking tough in the name of Tyrek and other innocent victims shot during the parade. They were forming a "Shooting Team" with state prosecutors to investigate gun crimes, they told the TV cameras. They'd share their "most watched list" of people who pose a safety risk with the state's attorney's office. There would be, Mayor Eddie Perez triumphantly declared, a 9 p.m. curfew for people 18 and under beginning Thursday night. When I fill her in, Chatfield doesn't seem impressed. The shooting, she says, happened way before 9 p.m. And she's not sure anything can save the city now. "They've let it get too far," she says. She hasn't talked to Tyrek about what happened; they're not sure he remembers. But it's unlikely he'll ever forget. Even after he's transferred into a regular room today, he's looking at months of physical therapy for his left side, which was left weakened after the shooting. Doctors still want to run tests to make sure the bullet didn't affect his spine. In his room, a trio of "Get Well" balloons hover over his bed and a mini football lies on his pillow, which is stained with blood. For a while, he sleeps soundly, with the help of pain medication. But when he wakes, he reaches out for his mother. "Ma," he cries. "What is it, Ty?" she asks, holding him close. "What's wrong?" "Ma," he cries again. "My head hurts."